Chapter 31:

Lieutenant Jacob Legall, Londinium Central Policing Unit, grumbled a tired curse as he pulled his aging patrol vehicle out of LCPU's main vehicle depot and set off for another mind numbing twelve hour patrol. Ever since the Imperial Army's strike on the special weapons locker under London, and the followup strikes on the Ministerial Dachas in Central Europe, the LCPU had been forced to double its patrols. Under normal conditions, extra patrol shifts wouldn't have bothered Legall, after all overtime was overtime. However, with the LCPU continually loosing its best officers to the front line and the regular attrition associated with the job, the LCPU was massively under-staffed and over stretched. For Legall this meant that he was on his sixth twelve hour shift in as many days, and the strain was starting to get to him.

"Patrol 1027 to control," Legall reported as he pulled his vehicle out of the depot

"Go ahead 1027, this is control," a watch stander from the LCPU's central coms room replied

"Patrol 1027 starting sector Bravo patrol from Central Vehicle Depot."

"Roger that Patrol 1027," With that taken care of, Legall settled in for another 12 hour shift.

As his assignment was to Sector Bravo -the LCPU's code for roaming patrol- Legall knew that he could wind up just about anywhere in the city at any time, especially because he was one of LCPU's small cadre of armed officers. As an armed officer, his primary responsibility was to support the front line patrol officers in incidents. That didn't mean that he would ignore regular policing duties, but they weren't his primary responsibility either.

"Control this is 3329F in sector Delta 32," Legall's radio crackled, "We are in foot pursuit of subjects suspected of armed robbery."

"3329F, this is Sector Bravo Control," Legall's controller in central cut in, "We have an ARV in the area, would you like assistance?"

"Bravo Control, 3329F, assistance requested,"

"Understood 3329F, assistance is en route,"

"Bravo Control, 1029 responding to 3329F," Legall replied before Sector Control could call him

"Understood 1029, keep us informed,"

Legall tossed his radio's handset back at the receiver, flipped the switches to activate his lights and sirens and mashed the accelerator to the floor.

Admiral Machete pinched the bridge of her nose as the Press Secretary read through the plan for the formal funeral for both the Emperor and the soldiers killed in the Battle of the Dome. For a Press Secretary, Johnson Gage had an awfully irritating voice, mono-tonal and nasal. And most irritating of all, he had a habit of adding unnecessary pauses between -and sometimes in the middle- of words. Machete wasn't sure why Elizabeth tolerated him, because it was quite obvious that nobody else around the table could. The man was an absolutely brilliant wordsmith, and could craft a speech for any occasion, but listening to him talk was enough to put anyone over the edge.

Sitting next to Admrial Machete, Elizabeth wanted to reach out and wring Gage's neck. The speech -and the whole plan- in front of her was a masterpiece. But the man's voice was the most irritating thing she had experienced save for the occasional wailing of the atmospheric pressure loss alarm. Even though nearly a month had passed since the battle, the dome was still leaking, despite the best efforts of the Imperial Engineering Corps to seal it.

"Mr. Gage," Elizabeth said, "I think we've heard enough."

"Yes your highness, by your leave?"

"You may," Elizabeth replied

"Yes your highness," Gage replied.

Elizabeth surveyed the faces of her senior advisers, both civilian and military, hoping for some hints as to exactly how they felt about Gage's plan. Unsurprisingly, the Civilian side were still scribbling notes, and prepping questions to pepper Gage with after the meeting. The military side of the table were all still, almost sitting at attention, while waiting on their civilian counterparts to finish making notes on things they all knew -most of Gage's plan was taken straight from the MOD's Manual of Ceremonies after all. And even less surprising was the outright bored expression on Admiral Machete's face. Over the preceding month, Elizabeth had come to realize that her spymaster and director of special forces had every important office -by her own accounting- fully penetrated. And that full penetration meant that Machete knew everything of import that was happening long before many other people did. At first, Machete's apparent omniscient had been grating on Elizabeth, but she was quickly coming to rely on the fact that machete at least knew something about just about everything that was going on within and without the Empire.

"So," High Admiral Moss asked, "How do we forecast the Federation's reactions to the funeral?"

"Somehow, I don't think it's going to be widely broadcast within the Federation or the Duchy." Machete replied

"I think," McFllanigan replied, "That Admiral Machete has it right, as far as the civilians of both the Duchy and Federation are concerned. However, I'm willing to bet that both the Federation and Duchy's high governmental officials will watch the funeral's broadcasts keenly."

"Then perhaps I should put together a speech that'll make it worth their time, no?" Elizabeth replied

"That could be a bad idea," High Justice Hardy replied

"I think its a fantastic idea," Machete said, mainly to twist tails

"Thereby making it a very bad idea," McFlannigan replied, "We need to improve our relations with the Federation, not worsen them,"

"I don't see how a small speech from the Crown would change our relationships that much," Machete replied, "After all, a defacto state of war exists between the two of us, we are ignoring their attempts at diplomacy, and we are holding many of their own 'soldiers' -admittedly they are terrorists at the very best- and forcing them into labour teams."

"You say that," McFlannigan said, "But what you don't realize is that if we push the Federation too much harder, its liable to change from a defacto state of war to a declared state of war in short order. And I don't think I need to remind you that we can ill afford a war with the Federation at the moment. Your own reports say as much!"

"I think," Moss said, "That the Admiral and I are better suited to determining if we can afford a war with the Federation or not. Having said that, I agree that war with the Federation is something that we need to avoid until the conditions are exactly correct."

"I sincerely hope that the conditions are never correct for war," McFlannigan observed sotto voice.

Tallia drifted through the microgravity of her ship's CIC, with a warm cup of tea in hand to combat the chill in the CIC. After the Federation's raid, the Royal Navy's smaller assets were assigned to screening duties. The RN's Lightfoot class frigates -those that didn't need yard time anyhow- were broken down into their respective divisions, and assigned to different strategic points throughout Imperial space. Operating in concert with each frigate division was either a Halliburton class destroyer or an Aegis class cruiser. Because they were singularly unsuited to combined operations, the Imperial Brigade's Fleet Arm -under her command- were scattered farther out, manly on the Federation's approach vectors. As she surveyed the status of her ship's status from her chair, a frustrated curse from a sensor operator in the electronics warfare section caught her attention. Figuring that one of her SO's would only have cursed loud enough for the CIC's intercom system to pick it up if it was a big problem, she pushed off of her command chair's pedestal and drifted over to the electronic warfare section.

"Chief Walker?" Tallia asked

"Oh... Sorry Captain, I didn't realize that I said that..."

"Its fine Chief," Tallia said, "I'm more curious as to why you cursed in the first place."

"It's the gate ma'am," Chief Walker replied sourly, "I could swear they're trying to get a paint on every item in the bloody sphere!"

"Really?"

"Yes ma'am; I'll show you," Walker said as he pulled a secondary display out of its housing above his console and punched a series of commands into his console, "As you can see, Boaz is running the main search array at full bore. Normally, we wouldn't have a problem with that, because the back-scatter would have diffused well below detectable levels. However, they're also sweeping the external space for some reason, and pasting us a good one."

"Are we at detection values?" Tallia asked

"Not yet, but we're kissing the low end of detection values for the gate's primary search radar."

"But that's not what you're concerned whit is it now," Tallia said,"We'll be kicking out a massive great radar shadow for someone to pick up on,"

"Yes ma'am," Walker replied

"Drone Control, Con" Tallia said over the intercom. "Do we have any drones deployed?"

"Con, Drone Control," The rating manning the drone control station on the other side of the CIC replied, "Negative drone deployment,"

"Con aye." Tallia replied, "Drone control, lets deploy two Type 7 drones, one on either beam, holding station at 10 klicks."

"Two Type 7s to the beams holding station at 10 klicks aye."

"Cheif, once they've got the drones deployed, use them to get a good reading on what sort of radar shadow we're creating. Once you have that data, let me know an we'll work out our positioning from there."

"Aye ma'am,"

"Excuse me skipper," The duty coms officer said, "We've just received an immediate recall order from Fleet HQ."

"Fleet HQ sent the recall, not CHQ?" Tallia asked as she took the coms officer's proffered message board and dashed her signature across the bottom of it," Well, it looks like we do." Tallia scanned the orders quickly, hoping for some sort of clue as to what they were being recalled. However it was a standard form message with no useful details. "Drone control, abort the drone launch. Officer of the watch, plot us a least-time course to the fleet mooring at Von Braun. Coms, send a tight-beam to Boaz control, let them know we're coming in but not through the standard patterns. We don't have the time, and I don't have the inclination, to put up with that mess at the moment. Also, com Sector Control and let them know that we're on their way in and need a mooring ASAP."

"Aye ma'am," The OOD replied, "I'll get on it."

"Good," Talia replied, "I'll be in my quarters, com me when we're on final for our mooring."

"Aye ma'am," The OOD replied

Trusting her junior officers to get the ship into port without too much trouble, Tallia headed back to her quarters while she pondered the message in her hands.

Major Julio Vargas whispered a sullen curse as he examined the weather reports for the upcoming week. According to the tea-leaf readers in the local weather bureau, the temperature wasn't expected to drop below 100 for the next week. Which meant that he was going to have to guide his recruits through the upcomfing week's worth of field exercises while having to listen to them complain about the heat. Most of his recruits were from the European and Asian zones of the Federation, meaning that they simply weren't used to the abusive dry heat of the desert. Not that he was planning on being particularly sympathetic to them at all. After all, they were going to be in functioning mobile suits with air conditioning. Vargas on the other hand was going to be crammed into a range control vehicle with his four assistant instructors and twelve sensor techs. Theoretically the RCVs were air conditioned, but in reality, the air conditioning systems tended to give up after about an hour.

"Anything I can do for you Major?" One of the weather center operators asked

Vargas replied, "Do we have any sort of cooler weather in the forecast?"

"No sir, just going to get hotter really,"

"Damn, Thanks anyhow." Vargas said as he left the weather bureau's office.

Cadet 1st Class Shiro Tamatsu whispered a sullen curse of his own as he stepped out of his training company's barracks and into the baking mid-day heat. Intellectually, he had known that the Citadel's environment would differ from that of his native Japan, but actually experiencing the differences was something else. Even the short distance between the training company's barracks and the classroom facilities was enough to make him sweat profusely, even though they had been in the desert hell for nearly 6 months. As Tamatsu approached the doors to the classroom facilities, he fished into his pocket for his ID badge. Before he could reach the door, a strange hissing roar reached his ears. As his instincts told him, Tamatsu automatically began searching the sky in quarters to locate the source of the sound. Before Tamatsu could locate the sound, several of the base's Viper-Strike defensive turrets snapped out of their underground covers and began throwing storms of lead, tungsten and steel into the air.

Instinctively Tamatsu rolled into one of the combined blast revetment/fighting positions that dotted the base and curled into the fetal position with his hands pressed hard against his ears. It was hardly the manly thing to do, but it was all Tamatsu could think to do, his fight or flight reflex having tipped the flight side of the scale. Over the staccato roar over the Viper-Strikes firing, a loud series of explosions reached Tamatsu's ears. Suddenly, the whole world went silent, a deep, profound silence as though everything on the base had stopped working. For a couple of Seconds, Tamatsu thought it was some sort of test, but soon the demonic howl of rocket artillery ripping through the air reached his ears. Tamatsu was hardly experienced enough to recognize the sound for what it really was, but something about the sound told him that his nightmare was only just begenning. The first explosion, coming almost immediately on the heels of the rocket artillery's sound reaching Tamatsu's ears sent him bouncing.

Vargas on the other had knew exactly what the sound was, and he immediately dove for cover. Just as he rolled into the cover of a blast revetment of his own, a missile exploded nearby, sending him flying back out of cover. Before he could roll back into cover, another explosion heaved him up off the ground and into a hedge. Even though the bushes would provide him with no cover, they would give him something to grab onto, and if another missile landed near by, they would help cushion him against the shock wave. In between the explosions, Vargas expected to hear the sound of the base's various alarms going off, the base's PA system ordering defenders to their posts, but there was nothing. As he searched the area, something caught his eye and made his heart jump up into his throat. Every single electrical device in his view -including the supposedly hardened Vipers was down.

Training kicked in for Vargas, and he sprinted off to his cadet company's rally point and guide them underground to the safety bunkers. With any luck, the majority of his cadets would have already put themselves in the bunker without needing to be told to. As he sprinted for the bunker, he pulled his side-arm from its holster, just in case the assault was being lead in by infantry teams. That was hardly the Zeon way, but the fact was that it was a sound tactical idea and the fact that the Duchy had chose to ignore it in the past didn't mean they would this time. As he reached a low wall, he skidded into cover behind it and scanned his area for hostiles.

Sitting in the Duke's Chamber, the leaders of the Duchy of Zeon watched the young secretary from the economics department give her briefing on the financial state of the Duchy's enemies. It was an important briefing, but with a new front against the Federation being opened as she spoke, many in the Chamber weren't truly paying attention. With a major military operation on, it was somewhat unsurprising that nobody was paying too much attention to the briefing from the economics department. Of the few that were paying attention to the briefing, Grand Duke Ellington Lestrade himself was one. His degree was in economics, not military sciences unlike his brothers, but he had attended and graduated from the military academy and served just like everyone else in his family. Being the more cerebral of his five siblings, his father had carefully guided his career right up until the point of his death.

As the young woman reached the end of her briefing and asked for questions, the Duke signaled that he had a question and waited patiently for her to finish,"

"Grand Duke, you have a question?"

"Yes, I do Tera," Lestrade replied, "Can you please tell me exactly how the government of the blasted Empire manages to keep itself afloat?"

"As far as the Department of Economics can ascertain," Tera replied, "It has quite a bit to do with their requirement that anything used by the government is produced inside the Empire."

"But doesn't the government own most of the industries?"

"They only own industries that they consider critical to the public good and national security. Along with the public utilities the Empire owns and directly controls VSEL, Swan Hunter, Heckler and Koch, Accuracy International, FN-Herstal, Anaheim Electronics MSWS, Rolls-Royce, what's left of Lockheed-Martin's Skunk-Works European division, and BAE systems. Other than that they allow free-market competition."

"How much of their work force is controlled by the government?"

"Only about fifteen percent, unless you count the military, emergency services, public utilities and the INHS. Including those, it's closer to thirty percent."

"What's the difference between Anaheim Electronics MSWS and Anaheim Electronics?" The Minister of Public Works asked

"Anaheim Electronics MSWS stands for Mobile Suits, Weapons and Shipbuilding. The MSWS division of Anaheim Electronics is the department responsible for supplying the Imperial Brigade with their Gundams and stealth ships. Anaheim Electronics PLC is the civilian side of the Anaheim Electronics conglomerate."

"I see," The Public Works Minister replied, "But that honestly doesn't answer the question."

"I think it does my lord," Tara replied," Comparatively speaking, the empire has a miniscule work-force, even when they had their earth-side possessions, they had barely half of the Duchy's population. Because of their generally low population, and strict boarder, immigration and welfare laws, they have almost always had a fully employed populace. Because their populace is almost all at work, almost all of their citizens pay at least something to the exchequer. Also, because the government produces its most expensive systems and pieces of equipment in-house, they don't have the massive outlays that lots of other governments -including our own- have. Also, VSEL and Swan Hunter are the two most prolific ship-builders in the Earth Sphere, and the ship-builders of choice for many of the smaller, independent nations and many civilian fleets throughout the world. Including several of our own shipping houses in the Duchy. Admittedly, they haven't placed any new orders with either recently, but every day they are pressing the ministry to find some way to sneak a few orders into either shipbuilder, as our own shipbuilders are backlogged for years with military orders."

"So if we were to take out VSEL and Swan Hunter, we could cripple their government financially?" the Minister of War asked

"According to our research, such an eventuality has been planned for, and their government could easily continue to function on their other income streams from public utilities, public transit and the rest."

"Also, how do their welfare laws fit into this picture, I'm sure you mentioned them." Lestrade asked

"Their welfare laws are quite strict. If you can't get yourself a job in their 90 day job-seeker's allowance period, then you are assigned to one of their work brigades. They employ the work brigades for everything from delivering mail, landscape gardening, infrastructure maintenance, maintenance of government buildings and such other tasks. Only those that are truly unable to work are excused from the labour brigades."

"It's effective, you've gotta admire that. Maybe we should emulate them?" the Minister of Public Works replied

"An interesting suggestion, but one we will have to have later on. I believe that is all we require from the Ministry of Finance. The Defense Council is now in session, if you are not involved in the Defense council meeting I will ask you to leave; if you are leaving, remember our next scheduled session is friday next at eight AM." Lestrade ordered.

Once only the Defense Council remained in the room, the Minister of War rose and walked to the lectern. "As there isn't much information at the moment, I'll keep this brief. Initial reports indicate that all of the strike forces have landed successfully and are making good progress on the initial objectives. Planet side, the Federation is moving assets in to counter our assault, but they are doing it in what can only be described as a haphazard way. They are also moving orbital assets around, but none are moving into positions to assist the defenders of Mexico city. It does however seem that they are moving forces into blocking positions to prevent us from bringing in assets to reinforce the assault force, both in orbit and down planet side."

"Isn't that a bit suspicious?"

"It could mean several things, but I'm in no position to speculate as to exactly what it means. We suspect that they are prepping and loading one of their Rapid-Response Assault Brigades, but we have no way of confirming that at the moment."

"Could the Empire be moving in to assist them?"

"With what the Federation just did to them, it's highly doubtful. If anything, I'd expect the Empire to drop in and mess with the Federation, and screw with us. But as of right now, their Second Fleet -the Empire's primary striking arm- is staying in port. First Fleet is holding their defensive positions, and seems to be content to do so."

"What about the Imperial Brigade?"

"We don't know, and we could never know what they are up to. Frankly, we haven't been able to crack their stealth abilities and probably never will. There haven't been any unexpected explosions or atmospheric entries, so we're assuming that they're still in orbit."

"I see," Duke Lestrade replied, "What about advanced notice of an Imperial move?"

"If the Empire's First or Second fleets move, we'll see it. If the Imperial Brigade moves, then our advance notice will be the flash from the explosions. Or maybe the flare of one of their ships reentering, if we're damn lucky."

"How could we miss that?" Lestrade asked, "I've seen atmospheric reenry from the ground and It leaves a pretty obvious set of visual clues."

"Pretty easily, all they have to do is make a couple of powered orbits and lock in the locations of our picket ships -something we'll never pick up- and then drop into the atmosphere where we aren't watching. However, the chance of them moving to support the Federation is slim to none, given the tone of their current relations. I'd suspect that if the do decide to do anything anything, they'd drop on us after we'd taken control of the Citadel to spill some blood, but other than that I think they'll stay on Luna and watch the goings on with a detached sort of interest."

"I see," Lestrade replied, "Is that all? No questions, no complaints?" Seeing none, Lestrade continued, "In that case, let's get back to work. We will hold our regularly scheduled Defense Council meeting tomorrow morning at eight AM."

Elizabeth surveyed the faces around her as the footage from one of Admiral Machete's Type 908 Global Scout trans-atmospheric drones was beamed into the council chambers. The attack on the Citadel at Mexico City wasn't completely unexpected, Machete had warned that the Zeeks were up to something in the Central American area, but she hadn't been able to develop any specific information on their plans until the hours leading up to the assault. Machete had passed her warnings onto the Defense Council and shifted some of her own assets to get a better idea as to what was going on. However, she decided not to deploy any of her assets, because she wasn't sure how she wanted to react to the situation. On the one hand, the Citadel was simply a school, full of young quasi-soldiers that could hardly defend themselves. On the other hand they were Federats and that was the sticking point. No matter how hard Machete pushed, Elizabeth would not authorize a relief effort, even if it was just to rescue the civilians and students. The Civilians had done nothing to deserve what was being dropped on them, and because the Federation had taken even longer than she had to pick up on the play, there was no possible way that the civilians had been evacuated from the city prior to the assault being launched. Even if they did drop in to assist, civilian casualties were going to be in the tens of thousands.

"So, who's bird-dogging this drone?" Admiral Moss asked

"I've got one of my Omaha class Battle Cruisers -Captan Nimitz and the Omaha specifically, controlling the Drone right now." Machete replied

"I see, what's his exposure?"

"The Zeeks and the Feddies have their usual picket forces orbiting Earth, but Captain Nimitz has picked his orbit to keep herself clear of them."

"I see,"

"So," Elizabeth said, "How are we going to handle this?"

"This is one of those situations where we are probably better served by doing nothing until we're sure how both sides are going to play this out." Admiral Moss replied, "There are millions of civilians down there, along with a school full of wet behind the ears pups that are more than likely going to be slaughtered. It would do our international standing some good to drop in and rescue the civies -the Federation's students knew what they were getting into after all- but the situation is too fluid for us to risk our own necks for next to nothing. For all we know, the Federats could have a whole division hidden in the catacombs underneath the city, and the last thing we need is to be caught up between two much larger forces that really don't like us."

"And if the Zeeks manage to hold the Citadel and the Federation can't eject them?" Elizabeth asked

"Then it's our turn to crash the party," Admiral Machete replied, "If only to attempt to cut down on civilian casualties."

"Correct," Moss added

"Fine," Elizabeth replied, "Draw up plans to drop in a force to cover the civilian evacuations.

"Pardon me Admiral," a messenger said, "Colonel von Braun sends her respects, and word that GCHQ has intercepted an Echo message."

Machete's head whipped around and her eyes narrowed on the messenger's face, "You said an Echo message?"

"Yes ma'am, an Echo message," Machete's face blanched as she remembered what an Echo message meant.

"Are you aware of what Echo message means?" Elizabeth asked Admiral Moss as Machete bolted from the chamber at a full sprint, a not inconsiderable feat in the high heels that went along with the uniform Machete had chosen to wear.

"No," Admiral Moss replied

"But whatever it is, it must be very bad indeed to get her to sprint from here like that." Seamus McFlannigan put in

"I think something very bad is in the woks," Admiral Moss put in, "I haven't seen her look that worried since Star Five."

"I'm going to go..." Elizabeth started

"If you'll forgive me," Moss interjected, "I think that might be a bad idea highness. Admiral Machete will let us know if something we need to know is happening."

"I suppose," Elizabeth said, but she had no intention of following his advice. As soon as she could get away, she'd make a beeline for CHQ.

What in the hell is going on here? Legall asked himself as he reached 3329F's reported position. The citizens of London had learned very quickly that the LCPU's Armed Responce Vehicles had red instead of Blue stripes, and that their drivers where fond of -and legally allowed to- shooting first and asking questions later, if ever. Because of their excesses, the citizens of London had learned very quickly that the safest place to be when an ARV was around, was to be where the ARVs weren't. However, instead of making haste to cover, just in case Legall decided to start shooting, the people around him continued on as normal. This set alarm bells ringing in his head. A quick glance down at his car's MDT showed that 3329F's position wasn't very far on foot, so Legall stopped his car, pulled his SMG out and jumped out of his vehicle. Again, instead of scattering, the citizens ignored him and carried on as usual.

"Patrol 1027 to 3329F what's your location?" Legall called over the radio, but got empty air in reply, "1027 to 3329F, what's your location?"

"Control to 1027, we haven't been able to reach 3329F for about ten minutes now. Their location trackers have also been static for ten minutes. This is now a code Delta situation."

"Understood Control, 1027 is moving in on 3329F's last known position to asses the situation."

"Understood 1027, be careful, control out."

As he was unquestionably in a loyalist area -where LCPU officers were decidedly unwelcome- Legall was being extra cautious. Out of habit Legall surveyed the area around his patrol car to see if he could spot any obvious threats. Seeing none, which wasn't necessarly surprising to Legall, he slid the safety of his Type 10 SMG off and pushed the selector switch into the fully automatic position. He didn't have any specific threat information, but the fact that he was in a Loyalist neighborhood with two missing officers was enough for him. As he left his car, he switched his radio into beacon mode, so that the other officers coming to support him would be able to find him with little effort. The sound of breaking glass and loud shouting in the direction that his MDT suggested he might find the officers of patrol team 3329F sent him running.

Lieutenant Ariette Banskey, 14th Intelligence Company, watched as Legall took off in the direction of the shouts and breaking glass. Once she was sure that Legall was far enough away that she wouldn't be spotted, she stepped out of the cafe she had been pretending to eat breakfast in, and set off down the street. As she approached Legall's car, she pretended to trip over an uneven section in the pavement. Taking advantage of the distraction caused by her groceries going everywhere, she planted a small device on the bottom of Legall's car. A quick glance confirmed that nobody had noticed, and even if they had, they wouldn't have said anything, after all they all knew full well who she was and who she worked for. After all, this wasn't just a loyalist section, it was home to the largest concentration of rebels in central London. Banskey allowed the people around her to help her back up and collect her shopping. After making sure that all of her shopping had been corralled and loaded into bags, she accepted an offered hand and pulled herself back to her feet and carried on about her buisness as if nothing at all had happened.

Legall whispered an excited oath under his breath as one of his boots slipped on the worn tread of the building's ancient wood stairs. For whatever reason, the owner of the building hadn't seen fit to replace the stairs with modern, safer metal stairs, but at least in this instance the fact that he hadn't probably saved Legall from having his shin torn open by the stairs. THe sound of a woman screaming above him spurred him back to his feet. Legall was begenning to wish he had put more than just the required effort into his physical fitness routines as the steep stairs were quickly sapping his strenght. As he approached the landing on the sixth floor, he heard the sound of more glass breaking, followed by more screaming from the woman and loud shouting. Legall paused for a second, trying to locate the sound. Once he had the flat where it sounded like the racket was coming from, he brought his issue sub machine gun up to his shoulder and ran for the door. Legall tried the door's handle as he reached it, but it was either locked or jammed, leaving him with little option but to kick it down, which he did.

The sight that greeted Legall on the other side of the door was one he was entirely too familliar with, and one that he had never hoped to see again. One half of 3329F was laying on the floor, a kitchen knife embedded deep into his chest and a veritible lake of blood expanding out from around his chest. The other half of 3329F, trousers still around his ankles had his baton drawn and was making to strike a young woman who stood defiantly, a wooden rolling pin in one hand and a glass bottle in the other. Without hesitation, Legall leveled his submachine gun on the young woman and depressed the trigger, sending a three round burst into her chest.

"You stupid bastard," Legall cursed, "Chasing armed robery suspects? Do you know this has been turned into a delta level incident? In a few seconds there will be so much brass here you could stamp cartridge casings out for half the army!"

"What the hell are you talking about? We never put out a radio call about armed robery suspects! Why the hell is this a delta incident anyhow?"

"Because you never responded to Central trying to page you! They thought you were in some kind of trouble, so they sent out a delta alert you moron. Now every ARV in the whole district is on its way here and I'm willing to bet so is the CIRU, Major Crimes and all of the big-wigs that they can find! Not to mention the fact that this is in a fucking Loyalist neighborhood! Do you have any idea how the Loyalists will react when they figure out what's happened here?"

"They'll never know, we control the news media and all we have to do is put a Section 5 notice on this incident and word of it will never get out!"

"Your naivety is simply stunning," a woman's voice said from behind them. Both officers wheeled on the source of the voice, but only Legall was able to stay standing, "If you think a section notice is going to prevent word of this... barbarism getting out you're stupider than the average Zeek, and that's quite the feat. To be quite honest, I wasn't sure if you Zeeks could get any dumber, but my god there's living proof standing right in front of me! Ha, the entire borrough knows what you've done by now, and in a couple of hours the whole of the country will know. And then a couple of hours after that the whole of the Empire will know. You have let the proverbial cat out of its bag and you'll never be able to get it back in."

"Who the hell are you?" Legall shouted as the woman approached

"Me?"

"Yes you! Stop there and present your identification papers immediately!" Legall demanded, leveling his submachine gun at her chest

"You want my name?" the woman asked, "My name is Salome Windsor, Duchess of Cornwall."

Lieutenant Sam Pryor winced as her Banshee's claws snagged on a building. She wasn't overly concerned for the building's survival, but she and the rest of her squad had decided just prior to the assault to avoid wanton destruction of civilian property if they could. A stream of yellow tracers blasted through the building to her left, and nearly caught her mobile suit, but she managed to duck and avoid the salvo. As the Federation pilot maneuvered to line up another shot on her, Pryor ripped her claws out of the building they had snagged on and brought her mobile suit's wrist mounted 90mm vulcan gun to firing position. The GM that had attempted to shoot her sprang around a corner, 90mm machin gun at the ready. HOwever Pryor had expected the maneuver and fired a long salvo into the GM's torso, sending it reeling back into a building, oily black smoke pouring from the collection of holes her vulcan gun had carved in the machine's torso.

Another GM sprung out from behind a building, beam saber drawn and ready. Pryor sized up her options quickly and energized the cutting edge of her Banchee's claws. While the GM pilot's beam saber would grant him or her more flexibility in exactly how he wanted to employ his beam saber Pryor's Banshee was quicker and far more maneuverable. As the GM closed, Pryor brought her Banshee's thrusters up to full power and sailed clean over the head of the GM. Just prior to her mobile suit's feet hitting the ground, Pryor used her apogee motors to spin her mobile suit around so she was facing the GM's back. The GM's pilot fought with his machine to bring it around and engage Pryor, but his less maneuverable GM was too slow. Pryor closed and sank her Banshee's claws into the side of the mobile suit's torso. Pryor's claws skidded off the shielding around the GM's reactor, saving her from the reactor going critical right in her face, but causing the claws to puncture the highly volatile hydrazine fuel tanks for the GM's thrusters. The superheated claws of Pryor's Banshee caused the hydrazine to quickly boil and fill the hollow spaces in the GM's torso with gaseous hydrazine, which promptly detonated. Being a newer model of GM, it was equippped with blow-out panels that allowed the explosion's force to disipate outside the mobile suit. That didn't mean that it wasn't severely damaged however. The majority of the GM's internal systems were scorched into twisted wreckage by the intense heat, and the GM collapsed to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut.

Pryor withdrew her claws form the smoldering hulk and did a quick check of her mobile suit's status board. One of the GM's blow out panels and the gaping hole she had torn in its side had combined to bathe her mobile suit in flames, which pushed her mobile suit's temperatures into the overheating zone. Because her machine wasn't designed for combat with beam weaponry, her mobile suit was only equipped with light duty heat sinks not designed tod eal with the ammount of heat she as putting through them. This left her with two options, let her mobile suit cool itself naturally or engage her mobile suit's booster fans. Pryor was hesitant to engage the booster fans, becuase as they engaged, they would cause her mobile suit's thermal signature to bloom massively. However, if she didn't engage them, and a Federation pilot spotted her, she would be in all kinds of trouble if her mobile suit hadn't managed to lower its temperatures far enough. Before Pryor could reach a decision on her own, a stream of tracers exploded thorugh a building to her left, making her mind up for her. Using one hand to aim her vulcan gun at the mobile suit that was firing on her, Pryor flipped the necessary switches to engage her mobile suit's booster fans.

With comforting bangs, the pannels that allowed extra air to flow through her mobile suit's heat sinks and cooling grids opened up. The roar of the fans, which the designers had decided to place right behind the Banshee's cockpit much to Pryor's annoyance, drowned nearly all sound out in her cockpit. To preserve her hearing, Pryor pulled her helmet back on and slammed its faceplate down. The roar from the fans went from painful to a dull background noise. While she still wouldn't be able to hear all of her moible suit's alarms, her helmet's integrated coms headset would allow her to hear the most critical ones. With her mobile suit's temperatures comming down nicely, Pryor glanced down at her tactical display and set off to find the mobile suit firing on her. With the hostile mobile suit's relative location fixed in her mind, Pryor set out on a somewhat out of the way course to sneak in for the kill.

Clara looked up as Admiral Machete skidded into the command center, her high heels providing precious little traction on the recently cleaned and still slick tile floors. Without needing to be told, Clara had already gathered the GCHQ tech that had intercepted the message and all of CHQ's department heads into one of CHQ's secure briefing rooms. Along with the department heads, the commanders of the MSATs, SAS, SBS and SIS's Paramilitary Wing were in attendance. Frustrated at her shoes inability to provide her with traction, Machete kicked them off and slid into the conference room on stalking feet.

"What the hell is going on?" Machete asked as she waived everyone back to their seats

"Mr. Warder here will explain how he picked up the signal," Clara said

"Yes ma'am," Warder replied, "I was running a check on one of the older RFS-1 Ferret constellations that we were planning on standing down for maintenance, and one of the birds in the constellation picked up a transmission in the Federation's inter-constellation telemetry band. Or at least that's what they call it, but we know that it happens to be the frequency used by their Global Alert System. It's an old relic from the Second Succession Wars, but apparently they've been maintaining it a lot more than we thought they had. We knew that they were keeping the ground stations along with the VLF and ELF networks alive to communicate with their submarine fleets. We never detected any maintenance activity on the satellite component of the network. Until we figured out what the message contained, we had always assumed that the network had gone dark and that they had retired the satellite portion of the network."

"So we picked up an Emergency Action Message then?" Admiral Machete asked, "Was it a Major Attack Option or Limited Attack Option EAM?"

"It was an EAM-LAO targeted on the Citadel, with a launch on command only flag." Warder replied.

"Thank you Mr. Warder, I think that's all we have for you right now. If you pick up on the launch authorization, sound the alarm first decrypt it all later." Machete ordered

"Yes ma'am," Warder replied

After Warder left, Machete asked, "So, the Feddies have decided to up the stakes somewhat. Do we know what LAO plan they're using?"

After a quick glance at his notes, Major General Ryan Gregory head of GCHQ replied, "It's LAO D3A, which is the code name for a single missile counter-force launch from the FGLF at Torrington Base... From the notes I've got here it looks like the old dead-hand network is on its way back up too. Letters stations and numbers beacons are cranking up all over the place, along with a few of their massive woodpecker OTH installations have come up too."

"Probably means that they'd only launch it if the Citadel fell. But why nuke it, the only thing there anymore is the training academy?" Alden remarked

"I think the General may be right, but having said that, there used to be a massive test complex underneath the Citadel. What's not to say that they haven't reactivated it." Sharon den Almarik, head of ISIS replied, " While we haven't noticed any recent activity there, it doesn't mean that there isn't any. According to our records, the last confirmed project they had active there was the development of their current issue beam rifles and beam sabers, but that was nearly thirty years ago. The research for the Stryker's weapons systems was carried out at SNRI's India facilities. Minus the development and field testing that we did for them early on in the project of course. "

"I think," Vale replied, "That the Feddies may have sent the message to spook us into precipitous action."

"He's got a point," Clara added, "After all, the Federation has to know that we have the technological ability to intercept such a message if it was sent. What if they're trying to get us to jump the gun and put ourselves in a situation we won't be able get out of?"

"I don't like where this is going," Machete said, "I think it's our best course of action to work off the assumption that the Federation genuinely has their fingers on the button. If they didn't, why would the bring up Dead Hand?"

"I don't think they've brought the full Dead Hand network on line Admiral," Gregory replied, "I'm reviewing the Ferret bird reports, and it really looks like they've simply decided to start broadcasting from their perimiter numbers stations and letter beacons. As far as we can tell, the letter and number beacons are just broadcasting their usual crap. Just in case they're hiding any messages in the static between broadcasts, my assistant is bringing up every console we have and spooling up both of our spare Hecatonchars Mainframes. We will cover the gap until they're fully up with warm bodies and consoles."

"Good," Machete replied, "In that case I'll have you go and coordinate your division's efforts. I'm going to need lots of information very quickly. The same goes for you Sharon, but before you go I have some questions that you might be able to answer. First, what are the Feds moving up to support the Citadel? Second, are any of the Federation's SecTac or RegTac stations broadcasting?"

"Both SecTac and RegTac networks for the area were brought down in the initial strike waves. Our warning of the kick off was a particularly long series of EMP bursts. Apparently, they were trying to emulate the strike on Torrington and knock back the Fed's effectiveness with EMPs. The only problem with that is, the Feds learned from their last encounters with EMP weapons and added some hardening to their front-line units. If any front line units were rotating through the Citadel then there will be at least some coordinated resistance." Gregory replied

"As far as what's moving in to support them," den Almarik picked up, "IMINT and fragmented ELINT reports show that the Feds are throwing what loose forces they have in the area at the Citadel. As far as a truly coordinated response we have seen that there is alot of increased activty in and around Jaburo's remote airfields and the Jaburo fleet base as well. We suspect that they are prepping the 908th Assault Guards for deployment to take back the Citadel."

"Ok," Machete said, "Sharon, you and Ryan return to your departments and gather as much information as you possibly can." Machete continued once the door was closed behind them, "Alright folks, let's get tactical with this situation."

"Here's the way it looks from on low," Vale piped up before anyone could say anything, "We have two options -both likely to get us all killed, and equally imposible to pull off- hit the FGLF at Torrington and take the missiles out before they can be launched or drop on the Citadel and knock the shit out of the Zeeks."

"Or we could do both." Clara added, "I'm sure general Alden could find some people to knock it out in spectacular fashion. Or some of my operatives could slip in and knock it out a bit more quietly, but no less effectively."

"But you'd need to have an escort from the SBS or SAS to pull your operatives out wouldn't you?"

"Without a doubt, and getting back to orbit wouldn't be a simple feat either." Admiral Lassen added, "I'm sure we could get the Captain over there to drop us in nice and close, but pick-up might be a challenge."

"It'd be damn near impossible," Tallia confirmed, "Even though I'm sure we could find land out there that's suitable to land on, the Federation has that area so thouraghly locked down that they'd notice us on the way in and on the way out. Unlike the Zeeks, the Federats don't have any sort of trans-atmospheric vessel to threaten us with, but they don't really need to. They could easily swamp us with ground based fighters. Individually, the fighters wouldn't be able to do too much, but if even one of them got lucky and scored a hit on an engine we'd have one hell of a time boosting back into oribt. If they got really lucky and somehow managed to damage the nuclear engines we'd have a very hard time boosting into orbit."

"How hard is very hard?" Machete asked

"It'd depend on exactly how much damage they did. Short of sinking us, they wouldn't be able to do enough damage to us to keep us form orbit but they would lessen our avalible power, which means we'd have to take a more gradual approach path, which means they might have time to put things into position that could really hurt us. They might have the firepower of one of our Battleships, but they only have the armor of a cruiser, so they can't take too many hits, and with 3rd fleet holding station right around our orbital entry points they'd be able to lay in some pretty good firepower."

"What about your stealth capibilities? Don't they count for anything?" Clara asked

"When you're boosting to orbit" Tallia replied, "you might as well be waiving a here I am, come shoot me sign. The engines are putting out so much power that we have to open the thermal defusers, or they would simply melt away. If we take a slower and shallower angle to orbit we won't have to load the engines up quite so much, but it would leave us hanging in our most vounerable position -between pure atmospheric and orbital flight modes- for an unacceptably long time."

"What if we were to use the Blitzkrieg to take out the FGLF, it's designed for such missions isn't it?" Vale asked, "I could easily go in solo, take out the FGLF and then boost up to be picked up. We've pulled that stunt before and it worked pretty well."

"Yeah, but you weren't going solo, and you did one hell of a load of damage to the Minovsky Particle System didn't you? I seem to recall you burning out at least seven repulsor elements entirely and nearly slagging the reactor's core to get enough power to pull it off." Machete said, "The engineers at Anaheim wouldn't speek to me for weeks after I let you do that."

"But that was on the old Blitzkrieg, not the new one. The new one..."

"Uses the same Minovsky Particle System that the old one did," Machete cut him off, "And would suffer the same fate as the other one. Even if you left everything but a pair of beam sabers and your beam rifle off of the mobile suit, the damn thing was never meant to fly Vale! Let's leave taking the FGLF off of the table out of this matter, because even if we did take the FGLF at Torrington out, they have other GLFs out there, and I'm sure they could easily get one of their SSBNs to thrown an SLBM at the Citadel instead. The last thing we need to be responsible for is someone deciding to thrown an SLBM around. THose things are too damn destructive even for my tastes. The only viable option we have right now is to stop the Zeeks at the Citadel and keep the Feds from launcing indirectly. As far as I'm concerned it's going to be a..."

Vale cut Machete off, "Hot contact, 3 o'clock. Threat evaluated as one rather annoyed looking Empress."

'Just what I needed to deal with,' Machete thought to herself as she called the room to attention.

"So," Elizabeth said as she took the chair theat Vale hastily vacated, " I'm supposing that you've decided to do something about the Zeeks then?"

"Not yet Your Highness," Machete replied, "We were just going to start on a plan."

"So I see." Elizabeth replied, "I've got a suggestion; why don't we do nothing? The've both stuck their heads in the bear traps, let them reap the consequences."

"Were it so simple as that, believe me I would be more than content to. In fact, I'd be very happy to." Machete replied

"However, it's not so simple is it?" Elizabeth replied with a tired sigh, "What new idiocy have they come up with now?"

"The message I received told me that we had intercepted an Emergency Action Message, or EAM, basically the Federation's version of our Trident warning. From what we have been able ot gather so far the Federats have decided that they are going to throw a nuclear missile at the Citadel. It's a launch on command only message, but we don't know what the Federats have designated as launch conditions."

"Wonderful," Elizabeth replied, "Can we take out the missile prior to launch?"

"We were just discussing that when you arrived Highness." Machete replied, "And we were agreed that it was too risky an option for minimal reward, correct?"

"Yes ma'am," Vale replied

"I agree as well Admiral," Tallia added

"I get the point," Elizabeth said, "Unlike other people in the heirarchy, I understand that you are not fond of suicide missions unless the risk to reward ratio is right. I won't ask you to throw your lives -or the lives of your subbordinates- away for nothing. Which brings me to your next question, no doubt, what are we going to do about the damn Feddies?"

"As I see it Highness," Vale replied before Machete could, "Our only option is to drop on the Citadel and Knock the Federats and the Zeeks on their asses."

"Straight to the point as always," Machete agreed, "It wouldn't be so simple as that, but effectively that's our only choice."

"I don't like war being our only choice. Can we warn the Feddies off of their game somehow?"

"We could try," Machete said, "But I doubt it would have the desired effect. If anything, letting the Feddies know that we're onto their game might push up their time table."

"Would the Omaha be able to intercept the missile if it were launched?" Elizabeth asked,

"She could Highness." Tallia replied, "But that could easily result in the whole area being scattered with hundreds -if not thousands- of radioactive fragments. Push come to shove the cleanup would be a damn sight easier to clean up than an actual detonation, but it it's something that we'd prefer to avoid if at all possible."

"Laudable," Elizabeth said, "However I doubt putting our soldiers at risk to aid the Federation will be particularly popular. Especially as we aren't on what you might call good terms with them either. Having said that, we really don't need a nuclear war either. Do what you have to do."

"Yes Highness." Machete said as all of them snapped to attention wile Elizabeth walked out

"What are we looking at fighting off?" Vale asked

"A lot." Machete replied, "A lot. It looks like they've dropped one of their new air-assault battalions -made up of those annoying little bastards that they tried to raid TODC with- along with those clawed mobile suits. There are also a pair of large transporters inbound, and unless I've missed my mark, they're more'n likely Gundam Killers. Even if the Feddies managed to field a proper internal defense they'd be slaughtered. The Federation will eventually take the Citadel back, but they don't have the combat experience against the mobile suits that they're going to be facing now. When the 908th lands, they are going to be slaughtered. The 908th is the Federation's premere line unit, the best of the best -for Federats anyhow- and there's a lot of prestiege involved. They will win the day, if only by sheer numerical superiority, but the 908th will be absolutly gutted. If this goes the way I'm thinking it will, I'm guessing that we'll see over ten thousand casualties for this engagement, probably more if things really go to hell.

It goes without saying that the Federation will be well aware of that fact, and they'll be very anxious about what will happen to the 908th. To keep the 908th from being demolished, they'll be putting together a spec-ops package to send in ahead of the 90th. Under normal circumstances, it'd be a TODC tasking or a tasking to us. The only problem with that is that we have gutted TODC's free forces, and I highly doubt that they have been able to rebuild in the last month. And the Feddies can be damn sure that we won't be jumping into any situation to pull their asses out of trouble once more. Not without some major convincing anyhow."

"Q.E.D, the Federaton decides to up the stakes in the game by sending out an EAM, because they know that we won't stand idly by if they threaten the deployment of WMDs." Clara added before Machete could say anthing else

"If we're going to run down that rabbit hole," Lassen said, "We don't have a choice but to deply and pull their balls out of the vice, otherwise they will nuke the Citadel and kill an untold number of civilians. Or so they want us to think."

"The Federats have to know that mass killings of civilians, especially of their own civilians, will cause them more trouble than having the 908th gutted ever would." Vale put in, "Surely they're aware of how fragile the Federation is at the moment?"

"You say that," General Alden said, "But you're missing the potential propaganda victory having one of their own cities nuked off the face of the Earth would give them."

"It'd be an excuse for the Federation to unleash their own WMDs on the Zeeks and 'win' the war. However anyone with half a wit in her head and an eye on the earth would be able to see exactly where the warhead had been launched from. The Zeeks would know where it had come from, we'd know where it had come from, Side Six and the other independant colony nations would see where it had come from, and the Neutral Territories would possibly even pick up on it depending on it's flight path. The Zeeks could claim innocense and half the sphere would back them up. The Feddies can't be so stupid that they don't realize that, right?" Clara asked

"Or can they?" Vale asked, "I mean look what they just did. Surely anyone smart enough not to stick his dick in a meat grinder..."

"Vale," Machete said, "Mind your tongue,"

"Yes ma'am," Vale replied

"Vulgarities asside," Lassen said, "The captain makes a good point. In the last couple of months we have seen the Federation pull some pretty desperate stunts off. They stuck their noses into the neutral territories, only to have that blow up in their faces. They then decide to attack us here at home, to 'rescue' some of their pilots. Both manuvers have cost them untold amounts in men, materiel and morale. I think we're missing something here, I really do."

"Is it possible the Federation is trying to engender an external crisis to stave off some sort of internal crisis?" Tallia asked

"It's a time honoured tradition," Alden remarked, "Both with the Federation and other governments throughout history."

"But what the hell kind of crisis could they be trying to stave off?" Vale asked, "All of the intel I've seen on the Federats say their government is stable, and has no appreciable internal stability threats that we might exploit."

"So have the rest of ours," Lassen remarked

"And there's a good reason for that," Clara put in, "Because there are no internal stability threats that you would be able to exploit."

"That's true," Alden replied, "And I doubt there are too many for you and your wetworks lot to take advantage of either."

"Unfortunately no, there arent' any," Clara said, "But that's not to say that I don't wish there were."

"There are countries," Machete said, "Much like our own Empire, that are not satasfied with their... Membership we'll call it, in the Earth Federation. Unfortunatley for them, they don't have the strategic importance to the Federation that we do..."

"Did," corrected General Alden

"Right, did," Machete replied, "Anyhow, you get where I was going with that anyhow. Because they don't hold as much strategic importance as we did to the Federation, they weren't and aren't able to negotiate favorable terms for themselves. Amongst those nations there has always been an undercurrent of rebellion that the Federation was always able to quell. However, they will have seen what the Federation has attempted to do to us and they'll be worried that they're next. Which means they will have shifted from resigned acceptance of their forced membership in the Federation, to seeing it as a risk to their national survival and attempting to strike out on their own. Unless the Federation creates some kind of external crisis that they can use to frighten the potential breakaways back into toeing the party line."

"After all, look what the Zeeks did to Mexico City. They were foolish enough to declare themselves a Special Administrative Zone and breakaway from the Federation proper. Which means they loose the umbrealla protection of the various accords and treaties that the Federation is a party to, which means that you become a target for unrestrained Zeek hostility and weapons of mass destruction don't you?" Clara added, trying -and failing- to immitate the Secretary General of the Federation's distinct accent.

"So we're agreed then that there is a very strong posiblity that the Feds will nuke the Citadel in some kind of macheavellian play to bring potential breakaways back into the fold as it were?" Vale said

"I think its something we simply cannot afford to overlook." Alden said

"I don't like it at all," Lassen remarked, "But the logic behind the theory is sound. But what about us and our own bids for independence, how will those factor into the thinking of the breakaways?"

"It won't," Machete said, "Because they know full well that we have the power to nuke just about anyone into oblivion many times over. After they complete their breakaway it will factor into their thinking, because they'll be banging down the doors at the Foreign Ministry, trying to do whatever they can to align themselves with us."

"Not that I'd blame many of the smaller breakaways for doing exactly that," Vale said, "Christ, there are a few of them that are barely the size of Greater London. I could easily hold some of them with an outsized company,"

"Which is exactly what you have to play with for now isn't it?" Machete replied, trying to turn Vale's screws

"Pretty much," Vale replied with a dismissive wave at Machete's attempt to get a rise out of him

"Maybe that's where we need to be concentrating our forces then." Clara remarked, "Especially if Captain Vale isn't just talking out his arse, and they could be held with a minimum involvement on our part. After all, the 10th is nearly operationally ready aren't they?"

"They are," Machete said, "However, we have been ordered off that play. Unofficially and officially I'd love to make it, but Her Majesty has ordered me to stop and I'll be damned if I'm going to disobey her."

'Openly at least,' Vale thought to himself

"Besides," Vale said, "The only place that plan would really have ever succeeded was in the Kingdom itself."

"I think you're underestimating..."

"He is," Machete said, cutting Clara off before an argument could start, "But he also has a point. At this point, we're going to have to take a wait and see approach to this situation. Vale, I want you mounted up and ready to deploy, and pass the word for Colonel Segretov to get as many of his mobile suits as possible loaded up and ready to deploy as well. I'll send orbit points to Tallia and the Air Arm as soon as I've decided where exactly I want to put you all. Everybody else, stand by and be ready to deploy as per ROE delta, option zero."

Lieutennant Thomas 'Gunner' Gunderson cringed as a Lancer blasted away at his Stryker with its shoulder mounted RPGs. Two of the three RPGs went wide and detonated inside surrounding buildings. The Third RPG got close, but a well timed burst from Gunner's 60mm vulcan gun detonated the RPG before it could damage his mobile suit. He brought his Stryker Hi-MOB's rifle up and ripped off a burst in the direction of the Lancer that had fired on him, but the Lancer's pilot had his machine moving for cover before Gunner's weapon was in firing position, causing his salvo to go wide and tear chunks of asphalt out of the street. Event though Gunderson knew it to be a massive waste of ammunition, he kept his finger depressed on the trigger as he tracked the Lancer behind a building. The old stonework of the building stood no chance against Gunderson's 90mm shells, which combined with chunks of the building to gouge chunks out of the Lancer's torso. The Lancer's thin armor and lack of internal damage containment combined to allow projectiles and fragments of the building to riccoshet around the inside of the machine's torso and wreak untold havoc on the Lancer's internals.

A fragment of stone or shell -nobody would ever know which- shattered the shielding around the Lancer's reactor. Weight, space and complexity considerations in the Lancer's design stage meant that the reactor's shielding panels also contained the many channels used by the reactor's cooling system to pass coolant through the reactor's various components. With the cladding ripped away and holed in multiple points on the hot side of the reactor, all of the coolant was allowed to flow out in under a minute. The reactor's automated emergency systems detected the loss of coolant and attempted to resolve the issue by flooding in more coolant, but it was an act of futility because none of the coolant even made it into the reactor. The quickly rising heat in the reactor's core, quickly boiled off the water based coolant. But it didn't stop there, the heat caused the water in the coolant to split into its base elements, hydrogen and oxygen. A spark from a severed control run provided the final fatal spark that ignited the highly volatile hydrogen/oxygen mixture before it could condense back into water. The resulting explosion ripped the reactor apart and scattered burning hot chunks of reactor core throughout the mobile suit's internal structures. A cascading chain of failures caused by the chunks of reactor core set off multiple small explosions within the mobile suit. One of the explosions shattered the reactor's liquid fuel store, which caused a massive explosion that vaporized the mobile suit and nearly a block worth of structures around it.

"Goddamn," Gunderson muttered to himself, "That was fantastic,"

"Lieutenant, we've got word from on high that whatever we can scrape together is all that there's going to be." Gunderson's satcom equipped pilot, Sergeant Tyler White reported as he dodged a flaming chunk of building.

"Great, " Gunderson grumbled "If that's the case, then we'll hole up right here and see what happens. Command didn't happen to mention who was actually in charge of this shit show did they?"

"Negative," White replied, "They don't have any telemetry, so we're going to have to figure it out for ourselves."

"Wonderful," Has anyone picked up on any frendly traffic?"

"None," White replied

"None here Lieutenant," Corproal Jackson Brim replied, "Just static here, but my long-com and a good portion of my sensor net is shot,"

"None here sir," Private Mark Dill replied, "But my long-com and sensor net is a smoking wreck."

"Not surpsising," Gunderson replied before the rest of his company's surviving pilots could reply, "If anyone does pick up some signs of friendlies shout out so we can try to coordinate with one another. Hell, at this point I'd be happy with an Imperial bastard or two at this point. God knows we could use their firepower."

"Yeah, I'd love to see one of their Gundams about now, but I'm willing to bet that they'll sit up in Luna and watch us get shafted. Especially after what the fools at TODC just did to them." Master Sergeant Bill Cooper, Gunderson's company sergeant replied.

"I have a feeling that if the Empire does decide to join the battle," One of Gunderson's trainee Ensigns piped up, "They'd bleed us just as badly as they would the Zeeks."

"Out of the mouths of Ensigns" Cooper piped up

"True enough," Gunderson replied, "First squad move up and secure that row of buildings 2 clicks to the front. Second squad take the right flank half a klick behind first squad. Third squad and I will hang back here and provide a fallback position. We aren't going to be able to hold the invasion back on our own, so if you're in danger of being overrun, fallback to my position and we'll try to hold here. If we can't hold this position we'll split up and rally up at the coms station. If the coms station has been taken we'll rally up on the fly and figure out what to do from there. Gunderson out."

Without thinking, Legall brought up his sub machine gun and leveled it at Duchess Windsor's chest, but kept his finger safely away from the trigger lest he ruin his chance at the massive reward being offered for bringing in a member of the Imperial Royal Family alive.

"On the ground!" Legall demanded, "Now you Imperialist slut!"

"Oh get fucked," Windsor replied with a baleful glare, "ANd for another thing, point that stupid toy somewhere else child."

"On the ground!" Legall bellowed, waiving his submachine gun for emphasis, " Now, or I'll shoot,"

"No you wont, you silly twat," Windsor muttered as she flicked her wrist, and sent a knife sailing into Legall's neck. Legall reached up to his neck, clawing at his throat as his life drained out from the wound. Before Legall's surviving partner could get off the ground, Windsor sent another knife sailing into his throat. With the two LCPU Officers sorted, she crouched next to the young woman that Legall had shot and pressed her index and middle finger against her neck to feel for a carotid pulse. To her surprise, the young woman's skin was warm and she had a strong pulse.

"Child, are you alright?"Windsor asked

"I am well your highness," she replied, "In pain, but alright,"

"Good, then let us be gone from this place,"

"Yes your highness,"

"Might I have your name child?"

"Lieutenant Tyra Michelman, 14th Intelligence Company,"

"Well then Lieutenant Michelman," She replied, "As I said, let us be gone from this place. Once we are safely away, I will bring you to a good friend of mine, and he will make sure that you have not been badly injured. Once I am satasfied that you are well, I will bring you to see some more of my friends, and they will bring you back into the fold as it were."

"Thank you ma'am," Michelman replied as Windsor gently guided her to her feet.

Windsor wasn't surprised at all when Michelmann took the lead down the stairs, pistol drawn. Windsor knew full well that she was capable of defending herself, and it was obvious that Michelmann didn't care how capable of defending herself the Duchess was. As they headed down the stairs, another LCPU officer kicked the entry door in and sprinted in the direction of the stairs. Before the officer could react,Michelmann put two rounds through his forehead.

"Point, this is delta lead," Michelman called after she slipped her radio's earpiece into her ear.

"Delta, this is point," Lieutenant Banskey replied, "What the hell happened in there?"

"We have an issue," Michelmann replied, "I've got Hotel Victor tri-zero-one in my custody... I've been hit, and we've got 5 deadl LCPU cock suckers in here."

"Good grief, I'm on my way."

"What about the device?"

"It's done,"

"How about the other end?"

"Prepped and ready,"

"Good,"

"What exactly are the two of you planning?"

"Something that'll cause the Zeeks an ungodly ammount of trouble, just the sort of thing we need to be doing."

"And just the thing," Windsor replied as Michelmann scanned for hostiles, "That I'm well aware that my brother does not need to be deailing with."

"Have you not heard the news Your Highness?" Banskey replied as she bundled Windsor into the car, "The Federats attacked Luna about three weeks ago... there were many casualties... and..."

"My brother," Salome replied, "Was one of them wasn't he? Your expression, and the way you approached the question says it all."

"Yes Ma'am," Banskey replied, "I much regret to inform you that your brother has passed away,"

"Who has taken the throne then?"

"His Daughter, our Queen, as Elizabeth the Third." Michelmann replied

"Well," Salome said, "I do recall that she was quite the little tearaway when she was a youth, and if she has retained any of that energy at all, it will serve her in good stead. Has at least somebody sworn oaths of loyalty to her?"

"The Brigade, the Navy, Airforce and Army all have, but you would be the first surviving member of the Royal Family to do so. However, with some luck we can now change that, and put a good knife into the Zeeks backs."

"Only after I've dipped it in something suitably painful first. Ladies, I wish to make a broadcast to the nation. As I seem to recall it, the 14th specializes in electronic warfare... do you think you could arrange suitable facilities?"

"As a matter of fact," Banskey replied, "I do believe that such a thing could be arranged if you'd care for them to be,"

"Make it so," Windsor ordered

"Yes ma'am,"